Prosecution of New Orleans Police Officers Underway

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a 2010 news conference announcing the indictment of New Orleans Police officers in the Danziger Bridge shooting and cover-up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Michael DeMocker)

Yesterday marked day one of the Department of Justice’s prosecution of five New Orleans police officers for shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The shootings in 2005 left two dead and four wounded.

Victims and witnesses accused the police of firing indiscriminately and without warning. Officers initially claimed the shootings were justified because they were fired upon, but federal prosecutors allege the officers were not in danger. (Click here for LB background on this federal vs. state law-enforcement battle.)

Day one of the trial began with testimony from Susan Bartholemew, who lost her right arm in a barrage of police gunfire, according to this Reuters account.

“I just called on the Lord because I didn’t know what else to do,” she testified.

The five officers face charges including deprivation of civil rights, use of a weapon in a violent crime and obstruction of justice related to an alleged cover-up of the shooting; a sixth officer is due to be prosecuted in the fall.

During her opening argument, Barbara Bernstein, the lead DOJ prosecutor, repeatedly lifted her arms as though . . .

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